Feminism is a men’s issue.
Amanda Marcotte and others repeatedly insist that feminism is good for what ails men, in other words that feminists and women get to dictate to men what solutions are valid for men’s issues. This is part of the tradcon division of labor we see in so many marriages where the woman gets the responsibility and all the power over social relations – in this case, gender relations. No surprise to find a feminist of Marcotte’s sort acting as the tradcon Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Patriarchy.
However despite the fact that false rape accusation apologist man-haters like Marcotte advocate it, the idea is serious enough to merit the time it takes to refute it. Commenter Valerie Keefe did it pretty concisely here. Commenter Tamen now goes into detail specifically on the issue of rape of men by women, specifically in reference to a recent rape apologist post and comment thread* on Feministe (the “Jill” referred to here is Jill Filipovic) and offers these examples of why feminism so far, after 40 years of promising to be all about gender equality, still cannot be trusted to deal with men’s issues seriously, or even to refrain from doing active harm:
Tamen on January 2, 2013 at 4:49 pm said:
When one disables the unidirectionalism inherent in many feminist definitions (privilege, rape culture, patriarchy/kirarchy and so on) then feminism itself does not really come off too well when it’s own theory is applied to it. Jupp’s comment about feminist’s reluctance to give up privilege is one example, Feminists track record on male victims of rape and on female perpetrators contributes to rape culture to the extent that a feminist who in an article about rape culture wrote that “only men can stop rape”. Minimizing victims of rape is rape culture according to feminists, but apparently not when the victims minimized are male and the perpetrator female. Not believing a rape victim is rape culture with the exception being if the victim is male. The exception is perfectly exemplified by Marcotte who thinks it is much more likely that a male victim faked it and is abusing the partner by being upset about sex without his consent.
And then Marcotte have the audacity to say that what men needs to address and solve their issues is feminism.
Man: There is this problem that men’s consent is implied and not really respected by women. Who can address it?
Jill: Feminism can. Men of course can say no, but if you say no to certain sex acts then I will vilify you and call you a misogynist.
Feminist X: Oh, and this is so not like calling a woman who won’t perform a blowjob/facial for a misandrist because of power differential.
Man: I see.
Man: A woman had sex with her sleeping partner because she thought the movement he made in his sleep was an invitation to sex. The man feel violated and weird and won’t touch her and now the woman feel bad and is at loss as to what to do.
Amanda: Feminism can. The man weren’t abused, he should stop being butthurt and don’t make the woman who he claim didn’t get his consent feel bad, that’s abusive.
Feminist A: The man is an idiot for making her feel bad, if he really felt violated he should dump her.
Feminist B: The sleeping man gave a signal that she understood to be consent and hence she isn’t a rapist for fucking him while he was asleep.
Feminist B elsewhere on the net: There is no way there could be any mixed signals leading to a man thinking that it’s ok to penetrate a sleeping woman.
Man: I see.
Man: I was raped by a woman. Who can address this?
Soraya Chemaly: Feminism can. Although individual stories without context about male victims of female perpetrators eliminated the qualitative difference between male-on-female rape and female-on-male rape. Raising the specter of women raping boys implies a false equivalence. Only men can stop rape. I am so not saying that boys’ and men’s experiences of assault and rape are in any way less relevant or horrific. It’s just that what I say means that female rapist of men don’t exist (are specters), but if they actually do the female rapists is not in any way responsible for what she does as only a man could’ve prevented her from raping. The rape experiences of boys and men are not specifically denied, ignored and hidden by feminism despite me writing as a feminist doing exactly that. This all makes sense to me.
Man: I see.
Man: Even though I clearly said intercourse is off the table my partner took my penis and put it in her vagina without my consent. Who can address that?
Schwyzer: Feminism can, although I wouldn’t call that rape. Because.
Man: I see.
Man: A woman (nanny) in her thirties have sexual relations with her employers 11 year old son. Who can address that?
Schwyzer: Feminism can. As the son of the employer he was privileged and hence he was a predator. The woman was disprivileged and although she shouldn’t have had sexual relations with the boy he was at least as culpable as her.
Man: Oh, what about the 11 year old girl who initiated sexual relations with her parents employee (piano teacher)? Who can address that?
Schwyzer: Feminism can. The onus is solely on adult men to set and maintain good boundaries.
Man: I see.
Man: I was raped and it took me a while to realize what happened to me and recognize it for what it was. Who can address that?
McEwan: Feminism can. You didn’t recognize that as rape because you thought “Eeeew, that would make me a woman” whenever you started to consider that you in fact had been raped. Get rid of the femmephobia and all will become clear.
Man: I see.
Feminist A: I am for enthusiastic consent. If you don’t get enthusiastic consent you are a rapist. I’ll even write in an “Yes means Yes” anthology about enthusiastic consent.
Man: A woman didn’t take no for a no and nagged her partner into sex. The man felt violated. Who can address that?
Feminist B: Feminism can. Although I probably would call it rape if a man had nagged a woman into sex I won’t call this rape.
Feminist C: Wait, that isn’t rape as that would make me a rapist (and my partner as well).
Feminist A (later): In principle I am for enthusiastic consent, but…
Man: I see.
Man: NISVS 2010 Report showed that in 2010 both 1.1% of women and 1.1% of men reported having unconsensual sex (aka rape even though CDC decides to label it “being made to penetrate” for men). 79.2% of the men who were “made to penetrate someone else” sometimes in their lifetime reported a single female perpetrator. Who can address this?
Feminist blogosphere (the adherents to tl;dr): Feminism can. What are you talking about? 1 in 5 women have been raped while 1 in 72 men have been raped.
Feminist blogosphere (those who read beyond the summary): Feminism can. What are you talking about? 1 in 5 women have been raped while 1 in 20 men have been raped.
Man: But what about the “last 12 months” prevalency numbers?
Feminist blogosphere:
………………………………………..-=Ø…………………………….
(crappy drawing of a tumbleweed blowing silently across the plain)
Man: I see.
For all the talk about how feminism is the solutions to men’s issues (the ones feminists are willing to acknowledge at least) I note that it seems like male victims of rape and sexual violence (in particular those with female perpetrators) are more likely to “come out” in MRA and other non-feminist areas than on the feminists blogs I follow.
I know why, but feminists apparently don’t.
I think feminism would be much more succesful at achieving what they claim to be by actually applying their own theories to themselves and change the aspects of feminism and feminists that fail rather than the current tactic of vilifying MRAs
*Feministe is currently “under maintenance” and this post cannot be linked to. Here and here are two posts by ToySoldiers that address that post.
- The Woman Card - May 2, 2016
- Frat boy bachelorettes and the invasion of gay bars - April 15, 2016
- “Not my kid….” - February 22, 2016
by 
@Tamen:
Brilliant.
I think feminism would be much more succesful at achieving what they claim to be by actually applying their own theories to themselves and change the aspects of feminism and feminists that fail rather than the current tactic of vilifying MRAs.
Good luck with that. At this point vilifying MRAs is in and of itself is now an activity that feminists engage in in order to drum up momentum for their cause. It’s actually at the point where hypocrisy, mischaracterizing, cherry picking, and even the occasional outright lie are allowed. “Hey we’re talking about MRAs, so it’s open season.”
Bonus question: I’m sure with the VAWA having expired I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of feminists get riled up about the expiration. Have you noticed any talk about how “women” are being left out in the cold by it? I thought VAWA was worded and enforced in a gender neutral manner. If that’s the case then wouldn’t be “victims” left out in the cold?
Two points I’d like to make:
1. Loving seeing the word unidirectional show up in more analysis… it’s how we separate commonly understood and examined sexism from cissexism, heterosexism, monosexism, classism, racism, ablism… basically everything but cismascluine-cisfeminine relations.
2. I’m going to note something all cisfeminists should note: Femmephobia is not secret misogyny. That’s like saying cissexism is really heterosexism. Trans is not gay and femme is not female, and it’s appropriation to assert otherwise.
Very nicely done, Tamen.
Tamen that is some fine work you have you put together here.
Do you mind if I copy this over at my place?
Feminism is indeed a men’s issue.
So is alcoholism. But with effort, we can face it and deal with it.
“Feminism can. As the son of the employer he was privileged and hence he was a predator. The woman was disprivileged and although she shouldn’t have had sexual relations with the boy he was at least as culpable as her.”
WTF, he actually said something along those lines? Do you have a link? I`d love to read it.
Wudang,
“WTF, he actually said something along those lines? Do you have a link? I`d love to read it.”
Here you go:
http://www.hugoschwyzer.net/2010/04/01/nannies-adultery-class-and-consent-some-thoughts-on-pal-sarkozy/
I am trying to decide what possible motivation is creepier – some self-serving reason to excuse pedophilia or the macho posturing around the male who is omnipotent in every situation regardless of any other factor.
Ballgame, hi there.
It occurs to me thatthe conversation with feminsts about feminism that you guys have striven so mightily for so long is finally happening, but not the way you expected. The direct approach, “Let’s look at feminism critically..” has not worked becaase it apparently felt too confrontational. But the approach where you look at the stated aims of feminism versus the actual real-world affects of it and the larger tradcon cultural matrix it is couched in on men and boys that feminists love in their own lives, that approach is working.
Because it really isn’t any approach at all, it’s just an invitation.
Thanks. The nerve that guy has to make outrages arguments that makes men out to be bad and undeserving of empathy and women good and deserving of empathy is unbelievable.
I don’t know about brilliant, it’s a rant about some of the times I’ve felt betrayed, lied to and dismissed by feminists when it comes to the issue of rape. Simply put, I cannot feel safe around feminist on the basis that they identifies or are identified as feminist. This despite all the assurances that feminism is good for me. There of course were feminists who in those examples did say in the comments that “that’s rape apology”, “that is rape” and so on. But it’s not because they’re feminists, it’s because they’re decent people with integrity.
Danny: Anyone can copy this post or my original comment provided they link back to this post and, if the blog owners here don’t mind, also puts a link to where they have copied it in the comments on this post so I can find/follow any discussions/responses surrounding it.
To try to explain the inconsistencies in feminist discourse on sexual coercion and violence, I propose the following model:
For some feminist the “enthusiastc consent” model means, that the judgement whether a sexual encounter was consensual (or how consensual it was) is not determined by a set of rules, but by how the encounter feels to a woman (well, many feminists prioritise female voices). The question of consent is decided inside a woman’s mind. If she thinks that she and the man in question both want the act, then there is consent, if not there is none.
The problem is that when people don’t keep their feelings in check, they tend to run wild.
@Gingko…
I am trying to decide what possible motivation is creepier – some self-serving reason to excuse pedophilia or the macho posturing around the male who is omnipotent in every situation regardless of any other factor.
Schwyzer’s position is one I’ve heard argued previously and in a variety of ways. Admittedly that was way back when feminists were still claiming women only sexually abused if forced by a male. I thought both notions had disappeared until Hugo tried it.
Note that many female perps do claim coercion by their male victims. The belief in our communities is sufficient that it will be used as a defence argument in courtrooms.
I first started occasionally alluding to my childhood experience during the late nineties. Ignoring all the statistical minimisation the “male privilege made her do it” argument was one of the notable sticking points for me in those days. And it did refer directly to me on occasion. Somehow I made her do it. The only way they could explain it was male privilege. How? they couldn’t and wouldn’t say.
The male privilege thing still abounds. And don’t say “no” to her because thats twice as bad as if she says “no” to you. “Like double” according to Joanna Schroeder.
gwallan:
Note that many female perps do claim coercion by their male victims. The belief in our communities is sufficient that it will be used as a defence argument in courtrooms.
The funny thing is this is almost the exact same defense that some male perps try to pull on their female victims. “I couldn’t help it she made me.”. And it’s called for the bullshit that it actually is. But for some reason women actually are unable to resist the coercion of males that are too young.
Here is another one: http://prospect.org/article/purity-culture-rape-culture
Again focusing isn’t the real problem, erasure is.
I just can’t see how rape is about controlling women’s lives when the majority of child rape (and that does NOT include envelopment) victims in India are boys (65.64% vs. 34.36%)*. This tells me that the author either by ignorance or willfully exclude male victims – which make up a very significant portion of victims – when she talks about rape. This promotes the idea that men don’t get raped and hence men can’t get raped – which incidentally falls under one of the behavior commonly associated with rape culture: trivializing rape. Which again is an example of how feminism fails when it’s own principles is applied to it.
Now, had they written “rape of women are about controlling women’s life” I wouldn’t have found it harmful.
* http://wcd.nic.in/childabuse.pdf (page 80).
As a sidenote I found that this study from the Indian Ministry of Women and Child Development share a common trait with the NISVS 2010 Report by CDC. They both obscure male victimization in their Executive Summary. As soon as I saw that on page VI in the section named “Major Findings” that the gender distribution of victims were reported for physical abuse while not for sexual abuse I immediately had a hunch about what I would find on page 75 (sexual abuse) and page 80 (rape – or sexual assault which is the term used in this study). The executive summary worked as intended there as well since most main stream media I’ve seen reporting about that study only reports that “53% of children have been sexually abused” and who goes on to not mention boys with a single word.
Interesting fact: If you are 18 or younger and live in Delhi you are twice as likely to have experienced sexual abuse if you are a boy than if you are a girl. You don’t hear much about that in the uproar and the analysis after that horrible rape in New Delhi.
@Danny…
But for some reason women actually are unable to resist the coercion of males that are too young.
Given what I’ve seen over the years in that media which targets women there’s a large and receptive audience for it.
And, Danny, I believe you asked on GMP why I consider it an unsafe environment for some. Joanna Schroeder IS one of the reasons. I’ve no intention of going anywhere near the place again.
While trying to track down the full version of a paper called Men’s Self-Reports of Unwanted Sexual Activity I came across a book on Google books called:
Just Sex?: The Cultural Scaffolding Of Rape by Nicola Gavey
The feminist author dedicate a chapter to women raping men:
From page 194
Male victims are at best a mean to an end.
At the end of page 196 and onward she looks at the issue of gender neutrality by changing tack to look at a representation in the 1990 film White Palace.
A s scene in that film portrays a woman initiating sex in a nonconsenting man (he is asleep at the time). In the author words it is (my emphasis):
Then some women and a man is interviewed about this scene. They are only able to see this as rape or sexual abuse by doing an explicit gender reversal.
The need for doing a gender reversal to understand the scene as rape or sexual abuse is apparently proof that it isn’t the same.
See page 208-208
W10 who is not a feminist formulated a kind of nongendered version of a feminist argument about rape. W11 who is a feminist argued that it wasn’t rape because “he didn’t have to go there and he didn’t have to um, yeah, I just think, I just think it is, he is saying “Yes” in many ways without actually saying…”
According to the author W11 ends up sounding like a rape apologist because she doesn’t consider what Nora did to Max as rape and when the gender-reversal was invoked she hasn’t got a way of saying “but it’s different”.
According to the author it’s not that W11 thinks that Nora didn’t rape Max that is the problem, the problem is that she hasn’t a way of saying “that’s different”, therefore gender reversal are problematic.
So here’s a feminist theory version of the examples I wrote which Ginkgo posted in this post.
So although she syas
“The reason for this is that if we are able to imagine, and recognize, such possibilities then there is room to seriously disrupt the dominant discourse of heterosexuality that cast women as passive and men as active; and which, I argue, work to support the material construction of women as victims and men as agents of sexual coercion and sexual violence.”
…apparently the victim cred is to valuable to give up:
“Therefore I am suspicious of, and want to critically interrogate, any approach or polemic that attempts to draw a gender-neutral analysis of heterosexual coercion.”
This is a pattern with feminists: brave declarations in the beginning, then the pervarications and qualifiying footnotes and backtracking follow.
Off topic, sorta kinda: Who is watching the Jodi Arias trial?
If this woman walks, I guess I will have to join the MRAs once and for all. ROFL.
I’m not. What’s the deal – I know I have seen this somewhere.
“I guess I will have to join the MRAs once and for all. ROFL”
That may be the only way to eegt feminism back.
This bunny-boiler woman drove 900 miles to slice up her ex boyfriend and now claims self defense. Mrs Bates, call your office!
Seriously, though, if a jury buys this one, there is no hope for anybody. She is very pretty, feminine and demure, of course. It hard to imagine her turning into Mrs Bates, but she even took fucking photos!
There is a glint in her eye, and she appears sociopathic in interviews, that BPD-style, non-stop narcissistic chattering/lying that Casey Anthony did so well. (And look how that one turned out.)
http://abcnews.go.com/US/jodi-arias-jury-convict-murder/story?id=18181593
I did know that the often quoted study by Mary P. Koss didn’t count male victims of female perpetrators, but I always assumed this was incidental by her focusing on female victims or by the authors inability to conceptualize that men can be forced to penetrate a women without his consent.
However, Victory_Disease on Reddit made me aware of this paper by Mary P Koss: Detecting the Scope of Rape : A Review of Prevalence Research Methods which show that it’s not simply a matter of focusing on female victims, but rather a conscious effort to exclude male victims of rape from the term rape.
I’ll quote some pertinent sections:
p. 206
Note how she uses the word “engage”. A man being made to penetrate a woman either by force, threats or coercion is engaging in sex with her? He is the actor.
On screening for rape using adopted colloquial or euphemistic language (like “Has anyone ever tried to make you have sexual relations with them against your will”):
p. 208
Note how she uses terms like “forcibly” and “against their will” when talking about the men being penetrated while when she talks about men penetrating women she uses terms like “felt pressure” and “coercion”.
She concludes with a set of recommendations, here is one of them:
p. 218
I see.
“This bunny-boiler woman drove 900 miles to slice up her ex boyfriend and now claims self defense. Mrs Bates, call your office! ”
Daisy, I saw this a while ago and was going to pick up on it. Sorry for late. Yeah, I agree that this one will be a litmus test of how far the Prety White Thing (PWT) defense will reach. We will see.
Tamen, that is a very interesting piece of information about a widely-quoted study. Good find. You will see it again.
That sociopathic glint may make the difference. I think the Casey Anthoney case, where there was a definite glint in the eye, may have changed a lot of of stereotypes for people. But we will see.
[…] a rant that I wrote as a comment on Genderratic that got posted/linked to by others on Reddit, as a post on Genderratic and on Tumblr and perhaps even elsewhere that I am unaware […]
[…] is a comment I wrote on Genderratic in January this year where I wrote about the definition of rape advocated by […]